Beaton: If you can’t stand the heat, then go back to the kitchen

A woman made history by being the first female to lose a presidential election.

Unconfirmed leaks reveal that her reaction to that honor was to drink alcohol, throw things, sob for hours, drink more alcohol and make herself so generally unpresentable that her aides had to postpone her concession speech until the following morning.

Apparently no one told her that you break the glass ceiling by climbing up there and pushing through, not by getting drunk and angry, sobbing on the floor and throwing lamps at it.

Apart from that particular woman, however, most women have come a long way since the days when they made a living in the kitchen catering to men.

Women are three of the eight Supreme Court justices. They make up about half of law and medical school students and a majority of other graduate students. They have served as heads of state in Great Britain, Israel, India, France, Argentina, Brazil, Germany, Italy, the Philippines, China, Switzerland, Iceland, Austria and elsewhere.

Meanwhile, due to the risky nature of some of their trades (have you ever been on an oil rig or a fishing boat?) men continue to suffer on-the-job fatalities at a rate 14 times higher than women, and in general die about seven years younger than women. (Those facts don't draw a lot of outrage, however.)

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Women close to me have been very successful in their careers. Of those successful women, my two daughters voted in opposite ways this year. I'm not surprised. Like men, women think for themselves and don't speak with one voice.

So it was perplexing recently hear some women presume to speak for all women about the election results. Bear in mind that, whichever way a woman voted, only about one-fourth of other American women voted the same way. The other three-fourths voted the other way or didn't vote at all.

A few women on the losing side not only didn't speak for all women but didn't even speak for themselves; they just emoted. They expressed their anger and cursed "white Christian men." They told us not to try to tell them anything because they're right. In other words, "Shut up," they explained.

The reason they know they're right, they contend, is that they're so angry. And the reason they're so angry, they contend, is that they're so right.

Around this circular syllogism, lamps flew.

I'm glad that women now have the option of working outside the kitchen if they wish. It's only fair that they endure rush hour traffic, as I did for decades, and I'm a fan of two-income families that include me.

But recognize that when contests have winners and losers — and not just trophies for participation — they can get heated. Most women are easily up to the challenge, as are most men.

For those who aren't and whose reaction to losing is to throw lamps, I have something to tell you — whether you want me to or not. With apologies to that white Christian man, Harry Truman, here's what I have to tell you:

If you can't stand the heat, then go back to the kitchen.

Upbeats: Yes, the rumor is true that I predicted four days before the election that Trump would win the Electoral College while narrowly losing the popular vote and that the stock market would drop precipitously and then rally explosively. But I didn't get four states right. I'll do better next time.

It's in my Nov. 4 Facebook post at bit.ly/2fOcudJ.

Downbeats: Some Hollywood Democrat donors who advocate transferring our individual freedoms to the government were toasted at the White House last week by a president who is more than happy to receive their freedoms in exchange for what ironically is called a "Medal of Freedom."

At the rate we've been going the past few decades, someday our only freedom will be the medal of it.

Among the assembled crowd — the recipients, the president, his staff and the fawning White House press corps — there was hardly a Republican to be found.

Except, of course, the armed Secret Service agents who've pledged their lives to protect this group and defend their freedom-transferring ceremony. It's always that way, isn't it?